ALTAMONT — Gary Spencer was a man of few words but the words he spoke or wrote mattered. He chose them carefully. He read widely, collecting first editions of books he loved even when he could ill afford them.

Most of all, he liked helping his daughters — in recent years, he helped them with his carpentry skills as they nested in far-flung places. 

Mr. Spencer loved his Oregon boyhood and trips to see his sprawling Texas family. He was the first in his family to go to college — he went to Harvard on a full scholarship and graduated cum laude.

He died on Saturday, Oct. 4, pulled over on the side of the road just a mile from his home. He had been diagnosed the month before with Stage 4 lung cancer and smoked till the day he died. He was 72.

Mr. Spencer was born on Aug. 30, 1953 in Eugene, Oregon, the oldest of two brothers. 

His father, Basil Elmer Spencer, grew up during the Great Depression in the panhandle of Texas, one of 13 children, the son of a fierce man, who had been a sheriff and a cowboy, herding cattle. His mother, Marie Louis Spencer, was the eldest of three daughters of a logger and farmer in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

His parents met after Baisel Spencer returned from serving in the Army during World War II and struck out for Oregon as part of a crew that built camps for men to bring phone service to rural areas. One Saturday night, he went with some buddies to a Grange Hall dance. “She picked me out of the crowd,” he said of Marie Wakefield.

He tried to impress her family by roping a runaway bull with his lasso; he made his mark but toppled from the trestle where he stood, much to the amusement of the Wakefield family.

Gary Spencer’s fondest memories were of life on his grandparents’ sheep farm. His grandmother, Magdalena Harmsen Wakefield, was known for being a sure shot and used her Winchester to take down game a field away. She taught Mr. Spencer how to hold his fishing rod parallel to a fence so he wouldn’t get “pinched” when fishing out of season.

He said salmonberries picked on his grandparents’ farm were the best to be had and he loved telling stories about visits with his Texas cousins where they had adventures like cooking an armadillo on a hubcap for a meal.

He came East for college and stayed because he fell in love with Melissa Hale. They met the first week of school the night of the Crimson Key Dance; Mr. Spencer had stayed in his room, studying Latin. After graduation, Mr. Spencer worked for the Hales’ Adirondack weekly, The Lake Placid News, sharing a partners desk with the woman who would become his wife.

He lived with the Hales, who considered him a son, while Melissa went to the University of Buffalo, pursuing a Ph.D. They married on June 4, 1977 and drove across the country for their honeymoon, arriving in Eddyville, Oregon to celebrate his grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary.

The Hale Spencers settled in Buffalo where Mr. Spencer wrote for the Courier-Express, winning many awards and breaking the story on toxic chemicals in the ground water at Love Canal, and where their first child, Magdalena, was born. The family moved to New Salem, where their second daughter, Saranac, was born when Mr. Spencer covered the state capitol for the Courier-Express. 

The Courier folded as Mr. Spencer was in the midst of restoring the family’s ramshackle home in New Salem. He then wrote for the Schenectady Gazette and covered the capitol for the Times-Union before covering Albany for The New York Law Journal.

The Hale Spencers bought an old farm at the foot of the Helderbergs with the idea Mr. Spencer might raise sheep there in his retirement. Mr. Spencer took great pride in using his now considerable carpentry skills to restore their historic home. He also supported his wife as she and Marcello Iaia worked to save The Altamont Enterprise as two weeklies die each week in the United States.

His daughters were the center of his world and, when they neared college age, Mr. Spencer took a job as spokesman for the New York State Court of Appeals. He greatly admired the integrity and dedication of the chief judge, the late Judith Kaye, and stayed on to serve under three more chief judges.

Mr. Spencer died five days short of his scheduled retirement with his retirement gift from his family, a fly fishing rod, unused.

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Gary Spencer is survived by his wife of 48 years, Melissa Hale-Spencer of Altamont; by his two daughters, Saranac Hale Spencer of Philadelphia and Magdalena Hale Spencer and her daughter, Barbara-Marie Hale Spencer, of Schroon Lake; and by his brother, Gregg Spencer, and his wife, Chi, of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or the Union of Concerned Scientists.